St. Piran is the patron saint of Cornwall and tin miners. The Irish, jealous of his miraculous powers, threw him into the stormy sea tied to a millstone, but he washed up at Perranporth. There he lived as a hermit and established a cult – the first members of which were a fox, a badger and a boar.

I’m delighted to have been involved in creating these papercraft Kickstarter rewards for AdventureX 2017, the narrative gaming convention taking place in London on 11th and 12th November.

For several years Adventure X has been bringing together developers & gamers with a passion for interactive storytelling. I’ve drawn my take on a dozen characters from some popular narrative games, the heads and bodies of whom can now be mixed up in all sorts of fun configurations, once the figurines have been assembled.

The full list of characters briefed included hapless would-be pirate Guybrush Threepwood from the Monkey Island series, the villainous mutant Purple Tentacle from Day of the Tentacle, and more recent heroes like Clementine from The Walking Dead – and The Witcher himself, Geralt of Rivia.

It was a particular challenge to make sure that such a variety of characters all lined up around the shoulders, so that the mix-and-match idea worked, but I think these turned out great. I’m especially fond of Bobbin & a swan from the 1990’s Loom(a sort of melancholy, metaphysical, musical fairy tale that I would recommend to anyone).

There’s even the promise of a giant version of one of the figurines, for visitors to play with at the event itself! Here it is being assembled:

Video games, especially those that tell a story, have been a strong influence of my work – indeed, it’s hard to think of many things more formative for me than playingMonkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. I even dabble in making my own small adventure games these days. As you can imagine, this AdventureX project has been something I enjoyed getting my teeth into.

I’m looking forward to attending the convention in a week’s time and meeting some other narrative gaming enthusiasts, amongst a great programme of talks – perhaps see you there!